Retros

find patterns

chunk up

various options for starting

talk about privacy and safety

a dirty laundry meeting

write down 1 word on how you feel about the sprint

write down a movie character

Update Team Agreements

do not create tech debt

boy scout rule

no phones during standup

The agreement is owned by the Team. The Team enforces it.

Introduce Tree metaphor

gather data

events

new technologies

celebrations

milestones

team membership

decision points

meetings

metrics

charts

velocity

defect count

number of stories

Scope changes

number of stories

number of points

stop/start work on a story

vote on issues, decide trys

4Ls

columns

Longed For

something you desired or wished for

e.g. paid version of Miro

Lacked

things you have seen the team doing, but consider that could be done better.

where you came in short

e.g. lack of knowledge of SQL window functions caused us to take longer than expected

Learned

Liked

What went better than expected?

things you really liked

add 5th column

Gratitude/Appreciation

write on sticky notes

keep private!

10 minutes

Sample Retro Plans

Agenda

Intro

Prime Directive

leadership is part of the job

you are all leadears

you are empowered by your responsibilities

ask questions

do experiments

Double Diamond

Check-In

options

1 word

pick a feeling from NVC inventory

Count to 20 as a group w/out repeating

one positive observation

say something personal

workshop

1-2-4-All

similar to counting to 20

practice organizing into groups and solving a problem

options

Sailboat

first define success

chunk down

team spirit is good, but not actionable

everyone present at Standup on time is specific and actionable

use SMART

Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Time-bound

particularly useful to strengthen team identity

Start-Stop-Continue

space for Ideas and Actions

review Radar chart together

Remember the Future

Agile Starfish

use Google Drawing

TRIZ

Items

all work should be reperesented in Jira cards

core protocols to decide

how do we efficiently decide/vote

recurring craftsmanship meetings

learn workflow

keep WIP to a minimum

update Runbooks to reflect changes in process

summarize

all docs

learnings

process updates

listing of phases

Set Stage

check in

heroes

something that person next to you did that was helpful

how was it for the person next to you?

What were some of your neighbour's victories in the last two weeks?

Gather Data

Iteration Report will have provided stats

Generate insights

list important items

call them like there were a person at the whiteboard (like we did pre-pandy)

use

Trello

Jamboard

Miro

Zoom whiteboard

A table in Google Docs

group them

vote on them

put a star in Google Docs

dot voting in Miro

Decide What to Do

diverge/converge on top 3 items

Close the Retro

debrief

soup and circles game

play online

gather impediments

team controls

team influences

the soup

from Diana Larsen

variation with "concern" instead of "soup"

based on Stephen Covey’s book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Treasure Island

similar to Sailboat

decide on what the "treasure" is first

choose out of 3

sprint as movie plot of favourite genre

agile games from BoxUK

presentation slides

Agile Bang for the Buck

a planning model

grid with value and cost in Fibonacci numbers on both

Games from tastycupcakes.com

retro frameworks from Weave

Define Success

Pre-Mortems

analyze a fictional future project that went wrong

Create Safety

Mining the Timeline for Gold

Remember the Future

Remember the Future Retrospective game

apply to

Customer Letter Technique

CEO congratulating team on success

Future Press Release

"working backwards"

backcasting

Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke

converse of a pre-mortem

Agile Chairs

split group into managers and workers

managers tell workers where to step (one at a time), count steps

the facilitator is a moving obstacle

then switch workers & managers, and trust workers to do the stepping in their own

what were the managers doing when they weren't micromanaging?

Buy a Feature

Sailboat

Similarity to SWOT

nice step-by-step description

have team arrange stickies into categories, then dot-vote (3 each)

Hot Tub

Empathy Map

mad sad glad

4Ls

Jira Team Playbook

Tools

Scatter Spoke

Retrium

Conteneo

Deekit

Realtimeboard

Patterns

Discover

Prune Product Tree

Sailboat

Product Box

Actions Centered

Shape

Give them a Hot Tub

Remember the Future

Show and Tell

Prioritize

Buy a Feature

20/20 Vision

Act

My Worst Nightmare

article in French

retro patterns from XP

PO's role in Retro

listen & watch

what can we do to make it easier for them in short and long term?

Read between the lines

contribute

e.g.

when filling 4Ls talk about how to improve your work, not theirs

were my stories small enough for the team?

did I do everything to capitalize on the strengths of the team

e.g. capacity

ask questions

refrain from offering the "how" unless impasse

poke at the problem

do not dominate discussion

we want Team to learn to find solutions

bottleneck when everyone is waiting for you to solve issues

Remote

1-2 remote team members

have an advocate in the room

AKA "sticky buddies"

the hands of the remote person

put up stickies, etc.

secret sauce in everything is taking a look at what you are doing

Josh Anderson

retros are bottom up opportunities to figure out ways for improvement

retrospect on this

3 Pillars of Empirical Process Control

adaptation

testing

transparency

burnup charts

defect count

inspection

code reviews

identify pains that you are living with and come up with ways to address it for yourself and for others

How Intrinsic Motivation is supported

Autonomy

Purpose

Mastery

Own and Improve Team Processes

what processes do we have on the team

execution

QA

planning

communication w/client

how healthy are these processes?

Items for retro

experiments

workflow improvements

invisible work

pick one item to resolve

prioritize quickly then spend more time on resolutions

appreciations

everyone here is a hero: you contributed something special, something from the heart this last Iteration

each person can take turns giving their appreciations

retro is a fundamentally vulnerable exercise

because we give feedback

ensure safety

Kerth's prime directive

"Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand."

--Norm Kerth, Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Review

retro format

check-in, set context, gather data, generate insights, make resolutions

diverge, converge

5-step format

Institute for Cultural Affairs (Canada)

The Art of Focused Conversation

ORID

Observation

Reflection

Interpretation

Decision

Human Systems Dynamics Institute

Adaptive Action format

What? So What? Now What?

Liberating Structures

Virginia Satir Interaction Model

how we respond to things

first 3 phases

gather data

what?

analyze

so what?

decide

now what?

was extended with 2 more additional phases to help start and conclude the meeting in the context of Software Development